NCAA Rejects Focus on the Family Ad

February 25, 2010

This week, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) – the major governing body of college sports – yanked a Focus on the Family banner ad from its website amid concern that the group's agenda conflicts with the NCAA's policy of inclusion. As the LA Times reports, the NCAA made the decision after some of its members — including faculty and athletic directors — expressed concern that the evangelical group's stance against gay and lesbian relationships conflicted with the NCAA's policy of inclusion regardless of sexual orientation. Pat Griffin, a consultant to the NCAA, said: “It's not the right image or role for the NCAA to be endorsing an organization that has such an extreme right-wing Christian political mission.”
Two weeks before the Super Bowl, Women's Media Center set out to expose Focus on the Family's anti-choice, homophobic, and divisive agenda. We called on CBS to stop Focus on the Family from fooling Super Bowl viewers into believing its agenda is not controversial. Though the ad aired, it was the least-watched and lowest-rated of the game, generating the most negative comments online.
Media sellers beware: no matter how they like to spin it, FOTF is an intolerant and irrational organization, opposing the theory of evolution, common-sense sex education, abortion, premarital sex and tolerance education for homosexuals. Their ads are created to do one thing: promote an anti-choice, anti-woman, homophobic agenda under the auspices of “Celebrating Life.”
Kudos to NCAA to refusing to buy into FOTF's intolerant agenda.
WMC and our coalition partners sparked a national discussion about bias in the media. We are a lean but highly effective organization, and with your support, we will continue to hold media outlets and corporations accountable.
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